Polish voivodeships 1922–1939. One can consider the eastern voivodships as roughly equivalent with 'Kresy'.

Kresy Wschodnie
or Kresy
(Polish pronunciation: [ˈkrɛsɨ], "Eastern Borderlands", or "Borderlands") is a term that refers to the eastern lands that formerly belonged to
Poland. These territories today lie in western
Ukraine, western
Belarus, as well as eastern
Lithuania, with such major cities, as
Lviv,
Vilnius, and
Hrodna. Kresy was part of the
Second Polish Republic
until World War II. In the
interbellum Poland, the term
Kresy
roughly equated with the lands beyond the Curzon Line, suggested in December 1919 by the British Foreign Office as the eastern border for Poland. In September 1939, after the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, these territories were incorporated into
Soviet Ukraine,
Belarus
and Lithuania. These Soviet gains were ratified by the
Western Allies
at the Tehran conference, the
Yalta conference
and the Potsdam conference. When the Soviet Union broke up, they remained part of those respective republics as they gained independence. Even though
Kresy, or the
Eastern Borderlands, are no longer Polish territories, the area is still inhabited by a significant Polish minority, and the memory of a Polish
Kresy
is still cultivated. The attachment to the "myth of Kresy", the vision of the region as a peaceful, idyllic, rural land, has been criticized in Polish discourse.[1]
Economically the region was the poorest in interwar Poland,[2]
and had the lowest literacy
level of the nation,[3]
which was the result of more than one hundred years of Austro-Hungarian and Russian rule, as education was not compulsory
in the Russian Empire.[4]

The Polish word
kresy
(borderlands) is the plural form of the word
kres, which can be translated as
end, term, limit. According to
Zbigniew Gołąb, it is "a medieval borrowing from German word
Kreis", which in the Middle Ages meant
Kreislinie, Umkreis, Landeskreis, Bezirk
(borderline, circuit, district).[5]Samuel Linde
in his Dictionary of the Polish Language
gives a different etymology of the term. According to him, kresy
originally meant borderline between Poland and Crimean Khanate, in the area of the lower
Dnieper. The word
kresy
was probably used for the first time in literature by Wincenty Pol
in his poems "Mohort" (1854) and "Pieśń o ziemi naszej". Pol claimed that it was the line from the Dniester
to the Dnieper
River, the Tatar borderland. At the beginning of the 20th century, the meaning of the term expanded to include the lands of the former eastern provinces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, to the east of the
Lwów
- Wilno
line. In the Second Polish Republic, the borderlands were equated with the land to the east of
Curzon line. Currently, the term describes all eastern lands of the Second Polish Republic that do not belong to modern Poland any longer, plus lands further east, which had belonged to the Commonwealth before 1772, and in which existed Polish communities.

In January 1944, Soviet troops reached the former Polish-Soviet border, and by the end of July 1944 they again brought the whole territory that had been annexed by the USSR in September 1939 under their control. During the Teheran Conference in 1943, a new Soviet-Polish border was established, in effect sanctioning most of the Soviet territorial acquisitions from September 1939 (except for some areas around Białystok and Przemyśl), and ignoring protests from the
Polish emigre government in London. The Potsdam Conference, via substantive recognition of the pro-Soviet
Polish Committee of National Liberation, implicitly consented to the deportation of the Polish people from the Kresy (see
Polish population transfers (1944–1946)). Most of Polish inhabitants of
Kresy
were ordered by the Soviets to move to the former German eastern provinces, the so-called Recovered Territories
of the People's Republic of Poland. Poles from southern
Kresy
(current Ukraine) settled mainly in Silesia, while those from north (Belarus and Lithuania) moved to
Pomerania
and Masuria. Polish residents of
Lwów
settled not only in Wrocław, but also Gliwice
and Bytom. These cities were not destroyed during the war, also they are located relatively close to
Lwów, which was important in case of an expected sudden return to the East.[7]

Altogether, between 1944–1946, more than a million Poles from
Kresy
moved to the Recovered Territories, including: 150,000 from the area of Wilno, 226,300 from
Polesie, 133,900 from
Wołyń, 5,000 from Northern
Bucovina, and 618,200 from Eastern Galicia.[14]
The so-called First Repatriation of Poles
(1944–1946) was carried out in a chaotic, disorganized way. People had to spend weeks, even months at railroad stations, waiting for their transport. During that time, they were robbed of their belongings by the locals, Soviet soldiers or Soviet rail workers. For lack of railroad cars, in Lithuania at some point the "one-suitcase policy" was ordered, which meant that Poles had to leave behind all their belongings. They traveled in boxcars
or open wagons, the journey was long and dangerous, as they were not protected by the military or the police.[7]

In the immediate postwar period, Polish Communists, who ceded Eastern Borderlands to the Soviet Union, were universally regarded as traitors, and
Władysław Gomułka
was fully aware of it. People who moved from the East to the Recovered Territories talked among each other about return to Lwów and other locations, and that sooner or later, Germans would move back to Silesia, as a result of World War Three, in which Western Allies would defeat the Soviets. One of the sayings of the postwar period was: "One atomic bomb, and we will again return to Lwów" ("Jedna bomba atomowa i wrócimy znów do Lwowa").[15]
Polish settlers in former German areas were unsecure about their future there until the 1970s (see Warschauer Kniefall). Eastern settlers did not feel at home in
Lower Silesia, and as a result, they did not care about tools, households and farms abandoned by the Germans.
Lubomierz, where several popular films were shot, in 1945 was in a good condition, but in the following years, Polish settlers from the area of
Czortków
in Podolia
had allowed it to become a ruin. Germans were aware of it – in 1959, German sources wrote that Lower Silesia had been ruined by the Poles. Zdzisław Mach, sociologist from Jagiellonian University
explains that Poles were forced to settle in the West, which they resented, they had to leave the land they considered sacred, and moved to the areas inhabited by the enemy, also Communist authorities did not invest in the Recovered Territories, because, like the settlers, for a long time they were unsure about a future of these lands. As Mach says, people in Western Poland for years lived "on their suitcases", with all their belongings packed in case of return to the East.[16]

The population of
Kresy
was multi-ethnic, primarily comprising Poles, Ukrainians
and Belarusians. According to official Polish statistics from interwar period, Poles formed the largest ethnic group in these regions, and were demographically the largest ethnic group in the cities. Other national minorities included
Lithuanians
and Karaites
(in the north), Jews
(scattered in cities and towns across the area), Czechs
and Germans
(in Wołyń and East Galicia), Armenians
and Hungarians
(in Lwów) and also Russians
and Tartars.[17]

Polish language in 1918

Map of Polish nationality resident population censuses including the German occupation authorities in 1916

Map of the Polish population living in Lithuania on the basis of elections to the parliament of Lithuania in 1923, censuses in 1921 and elections to the polish parliament in 1922

Since some of the most distinguished names in Polish literature were born in
Kresy
(Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki or Czesław Miłosz), Eastern Borderlands
have been mentioned and described in several works. Mickiewicz's Pan Tadeusz
begins with the Polish language invocation, "O Lithuania, my fatherland, thou art like good health...". Other notable books that take place in Kresy, are
Nad Niemnem,
Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass,
With Fire and Sword,
Fire in the Steppe. In Communist Poland, all
Kresy-related topics, such as Polish heritage in the East, or
Massacres of Poles in Wołyń
were banned for propaganda reasons, because these lands belonged to the Soviet Union. In official documents, people born in Eastern Borderlands
were presented as born in the Soviet Union,[22]
and very few Kresy-themed books or films were created at that time. One of the exceptions was immensely popular comedy trilogy by
Sylwester Chęciński
(Sami swoi
from 1967, Nie ma mocnych
from 1974, and Kochaj albo rzuć
from 1977). The trilogy tells the story of two quarreling families, who after the end of the Second World War were resettled from current Western Ukraine to Lower Silesia, after Poland's borders were shifted westwards.

After the collapse of the Communist system,
Kresy
returned to Polish culture. Numerous books and albums are published about Eastern Borderlands, frequently with original photos from the prewar era. Good examples of such publications are albums
Kresy in Photos of Henryk Poddębski, published in May 2010 in Lublin, with forewords by well-known people with a
Kresy
background - Anna Seniuk,
Krzesimir Dębski
and Maciej Płażyński,[23]The World of Kresy, with numerous photos, postcards and maps,[24]Sentimental Journeys. Travel across Kresy with
Andrzej Wajda
and Daniel Olbrychski,[25]
and The Encyclopedia of Kresy, with 3600 articles, and foreword by another famous person from
Kresy,
Stanisław Lem.[26]
Articles about the Eastern Borderlands frequently appear in Polish newspapers and magazines. The local office of Gazeta Wyborcza
in Wrocław in late 2010 began a Kresy Family Album, collecting stories and photos of those who moved from the East. In the first half of 2011,
Rzeczpospolita
daily published a series called The Book of Eastern Borderlands
(Księga kresów wschodnich).[27]

The July 2012 issue of the
Uważam Rze Historia
magazine was dedicated to the Eastern Borderlands and their importance in Polish history and culture. As Paweł Lisicki, editor in chief of the magazine, wrote: "Kresy is the very center of Polish life, the very center of Polish thought, tradition and spirit. From Kresy come Polish dreams and myths".[28]
In the same magazine, Paweł Zychowicz wrote: "The eastern lands, which seven decades ago used to belong to Poland, are of the same interest to an average Pole, as Mozambique,
Samoa, or
Gabon. Eastern Borderlands have almost completely been pushed out of minds of most of the nation. This is due both to the propaganda of Communist Poland, and the intellectual climate, dominant in the Third Polish Republic (...) Meanwhile, these lands were the most precious part of our country. They were the source of our political power and the richness of our culture. Above all, Eastern Borderlands were the answer to our fatal geopolitical location. The loss of these lands not only made Poland poorer, but also pushed back its development. The heritage of the
Jagiellons
was taken away from us, and once again, we landed in the times of the weak Piasts
(...) After the Union of Krewo, Poland opened to the vast areas of the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
and Rus'. We sailed out of Central Europe to the vast waters of the East (...) The great Lithuanian, Marshal
Józef Piłsudski
said that Poland is like a bagel
- empty inside, with anything of value located in the outside part".[29]

Grey: Areas with majority Polish population in modern Lithuania. Red: pre-World War II Polish-Lithuanian border

At present, the territory known to Poles as
Kresy
is part of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania. Ethnic Poles still live in those areas: in Lithuania they are the largest ethnic minority in the country (see Poles in Lithuania), in Belarus they are the second largest ethnic minority in the country after the Russians (see
Poles in Belarus), and in Ukraine, they officially number 144,130, but some Polish organizations claim that the number of Poles in Ukraine may be as many as 2 million, with most of them assimilated.[30]
(see Poles in Ukraine). Furthermore, there is a 50,000
Polish minority in Latvia. In Lithuania and Belarus, Poles are more numerous than in Ukraine. This is the result of the
Massacres of Poles in Wołyń Voivodeship; those Poles who survived the slaughter begged for an opportunity to leave.[7]

Numerous Polish organizations are active in former
Eastern Borderlands, such as
Association of Poles in Ukraine,
Association of Polish Culture of the Lviv Land,
Federation of Polish Organizations in Ukraine,
Union of Poles in Belarus, and
Association of Poles in Lithuania. There are Polish sports clubs (Pogoń Lwów,
FK Polonia Vilnius), newspapers (Gazeta Lwowska,
Kurier Wileński), radio stations (in Lviv and Vilnius), numerous theatres, schools, choirs and folk ensembles. Poles living in
Kresy
are helped by government-sponsored organization Fundacja Pomoc Polakom na Wschodzie, as well as other organizations, such as
Association of Help of Poles in the East Kresy
(see also Karta Polaka). Money is frequently collected to help those Poles who live in
Kresy, and there are several annual events, such as
Christmas Package for a Polish Veteran in Kresy, and
Summer with Poland, sponsored by
Association "Polish Community", in which Polish children from
Kresy
are invited to visit Poland.[31]
Polish language handbooks and films, as well as medicines and clothes are collected and sent to Kresy. Books are most often sent to Polish schools which exist there — for example, in December 2010, University of Wroclaw organized event called
Become a Polish Santa Claus and Give a Book to a Polish Child in Kresy.[32]
Polish churches and cemeteries (such as Cemetery of the Defenders of Lwów) are renovated for money from Poland. For example, in
Nysa, money is collected to renovate a Roman Catholic church in Lopatyn near Lviv,[33]
while residents of Oława
collect funds to renovate a church in Sasiv, also in the area of Lviv.[34]
Also, physicians from Kraków's organization Doctors of Hope
regularly visit Eastern Borderlands, and Polish Ministry of Education runs a special program, which sends Polish teachers to former Soviet Union. In 2007, more than 700 teachers worked in the East, most of them in
Kresy.[35]
Studio East of Polish TV Wrocław organizes event called Save your grandfather's tomb from oblivion
(Mogiłę pradziada ocal od zapomnienia), during which students from
Lower Silesia
visit Western Ukraine, to clean Polish cemeteries there. In July 2011, about 150 students cleaned 16 cemeteries in the area of Lviv, Ternopil, also
Podolia
and Pokuttya.[36]

Numerous treasures of Polish culture remain in the East. In Vilnius, there is the Wróblewski Library, with 160,000
volumes
and 30,000 manuscripts, which now belongs to the
Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. In Lviv, there is the
Ossolineum, one of the most important Polish culture centres. Adolf Juzwenko, current president of Wrocław's office of the Ossolineum, says that in 1945, there was a mass public campaign in Poland, aimed at transporting whole Ossolineum to Wrocław. It succeeded in recovering only 200,000 volumes, as the Soviets decided that the bulk of the library had to stay in Lviv.[37]

There are numerous Kresy-oriented organizations, with the largest one,
World Congress of Kresy Inhabitants
(Światowy Kongres Kresowian), located in
Bytom, and branches scattered across Poland, as well as in other countries. The Congress organizes annual
World Convention and Pilgrimage of Kresy Inhabitants
to Jasna Góra Monastery.[39]

Other important
Kresy
organizations, active in contemporary Poland, are:

Związek Sybirakow
(Association of
Sybiraks) from Warsaw, with branches scattered across Poland and abroad.

Every year, in
Masurian
town of Mrągowo, there is
Festiwal Kultury Kresowej
(Festival of Kresy Culture), sponsored among others by the
Senate of the Republic of Poland
and the Minister of Culture of Poland, with patronage of the First Lady Anna Komorowska. The Festival is broadcast by
TVP2
and TVP Polonia, and in 2011 it was organized for the 17th time. Among participants of the 2011 Festival, there were such artists, as
Folk Ensemble Mozyrzanka
from Mozyr,
Children and Youth Band Tęcza
from Minsk,
Folk Band Kresowianka
from Ivyanets,
Polish Academic Choir Zgoda
from Brest,
Instrumental Band Biedronki
from Minsk,
Vocal Duo Wspólna wędrówka
from Minsk, Children's Polonia Ensemble Dolinianka
from Stara Huta (Ukraine), Ensemble Fujareczka
from Sambir,
Ensemble Boryslawiacy
from Boryslav,
Ensemble Niebo do Wynajecia
from Stralhivci (Ukraine), Polish Dance and Song Ensemble Wilenka
from Vilnius, Dance and Song Band Troczenie
from Trakai,
Band Wesołe Wilno
from Vilnius, Song and Dance Ensemble Kotwica
from Kaunas, and
Folk and Polish Folklore Dance and Song Ensemble Syberyjski Krakowiak
from Abakan
in Siberia.[40]

Other notable Kresy-oriented festivals are:

Dzień Kresowiaka
(Kresy Inhabitant Day) in the village of Lagiewniki near
Malbork,

Świdnicki Dzień Kultury Kresowej i Lwowa
(Świdnica Day of Kresy and Lwow Culture) in
Świdnica.

In
Lubaczów
is Museum of Kresy, and there is a project, supported by local government, to create a
Museum of Eastern Borderlands
in Wrocław, the city where a number of Poles from Kresy settled after World War II.[46]
Numerous photo albums and books, depicting cities, towns and landscapes of Kresy
are published every year in Poland. In Chełm, there is
Kresy Bicycle Marathon, Polish Radio Białystok every week broadcasts
Kresy Magazine, dedicated to history and present times of
Eastern Borderlands. Every Sunday, Polish Radio Katowice broadcasts a program based on famous prewar
Lwów's Merry Wave, every Tuesday, Polish Radio Rzeszów broadcasts a program
Kresy Landscapes. In Wrocław,
Association of Remembrance of Victims of Ukrainian Nationalists
publishes Na Rubieży
(On the Border) magazine. Among best known
Kresy
activists of contemporary Poland are Father Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, and Dr. Tadeusz Kukiz, father of popular singer
Paweł Kukiz. Since 2007, annual medals
Heritage of Eastern Borderlands
are awarded in Wrocław. The 2011 recipient was emeritus Archbishop of Wrocław,
Henryk Gulbinowicz.[47]
Participants of annual Katyn Motorcycle Raid
(Motocyklowy Rajd Katyński) always visit Polish centers in
Kresy, giving presents to children, and meeting local Poles.[48]

The program of 2011
Days of Kresy Culture
(October 22–23) in Brzeg
covered such events, as: Kresy
themed cabaret, promotion of Kresy
books, Eastern Borderlands
cuisine, mass in a local church, meetings with Kresy
activists and scholars, and theatre shows of Brzeg's Garrison Club as well as Lwów Eaglets Middle School number 3 in Brzeg. Organizers of the festival assured that for the two days Brzeg would turn into the "capital of interwar Polish Kresy".[49]

The Polish presence in Kresy dates back hundreds of years. In the course of the time, two groups of Kresy dialects of the
Polish language
emerged: northern (dialekt północnokresowy), and southern (dialekt południowokresowy).[51]
Both dialects have been influenced by Ukrainian
and Belarusian, as well as by
Lithuanian, and to Polish speakers in Poland, Kresy dialects are easy to distinguish, as they sound more "musical".[52]
Before World War II, the Kresy area was part of Poland, and both dialects were in common use, spoken by millions of ethnic Poles. After the war, however, Kresy was annexed by the Soviet Union, and the majority of ethnic Poles were
expelled
westward, resulting in a severe decline in the number of speakers. The northern Kresy dialect is still used along the Lithanian-Belarusian border, where Poles still live in large numbers, but the southern Kresy dialect is endangered, as Poles in western Ukraine do not form a majority of the population in any district. Particularly notable among the Kresy dialects is the Lwów dialect
formerly spoken in the city which emerged in 19th century and gained much popularity and recognition in the 1920s and 1930s, in part due to the countrywide popularity of numerous artists and comedians using it (see also: Dialects of the Polish language).